(viii) Complaint relating to
Mr Vaz's alleged failure to register a donation from a company
owned by Lord Paul
694. Mr Andrew Robathan, Member for Blaby, wrote
to me on 26 April 2001 (Annex iii1), to make a complaint against
Mr Vaz, namely that he had failed to register a donation of £3,000
from a company owned by Lord Paul in 1993.
695. With his letter Mr Robathan attached a copy
of an article published in The Sunday Telegraph on 22 April
2001, the relevant extract from which read:
"The payment was one
of four totalling £15,700 paid by Lord Paul's engineering
company, Caparo, to Mr Vaz between 1993 and 1997. Mr Vaz has only
registered donations made by Lord Paul from 1995 onwards. Mr Vaz's
failure to declare the 1993 payment means that his financial links
with Lord Paul were effectively not known for two years.
The Minister's explanation for the omission from
the Register has only served to muddy the waters. In a statement
issued through the Foreign Office, Mr Vaz said: 'There was no
Register in 1994 and Registers were published every other year
at that time. The donation in 1993, which was to purchase computer
and office equipment, was registered along with a separate donation
for computer equipment for January 1995. This was correctly entered
in the Register because they both relate to computer equipment.'
He has refused to alter this explanation even though
the Telegraph has pointed out that a Register was published
in January of 1994. Members of Parliament are expected to detail
all payments in a series of Registers so that their outside interests
can be monitored. The payment is not in any House of Commons document."
696. Mr Vaz's Register entries for the relevant
period (Category 4: Sponsorship or financial or material support
and Category 5: Gifts and hospitality) were as follows:
January 1994[153]
4. Sponsorship or financial or material support
Sponsorship as
a parliamentary candidate and Member of Parliament by UNISON (formerly
NUPE) who pay £600 pa paid to Leicester East Constituency
Labour Party.
Sponsorship by British Psychological Society.
Trust 2020 reimbursed research assistance for inner city and urban
policy inquiry.
Research undertaken by CERN (Centre for Local Economic Strategies
European Research network) for inner city and urban policy inquiry.
Donation from Control Ltd in 1991 towards the cost of producing
a Report/Bulletin for the Asian Community into the work of the
Immigration and Nationality Department.
Donation from Cadburys Trust for Race Relations and Community
related work (until 1993).
January 1995
4. Sponsorship or financial or material support
Sponsorship as
a parliamentary candidate and Member of Parliament by UNISON (formerly
NUPE) who pay £600 pa paid to Leicester East Constituency
Labour Party.
Sponsorship by British Psychological Society.
Donation from UNISON to help with the cost of the City 2020 inquiry.
Income received from Annual Calendars used to pay for staff and
publications to further community political involvement and information
including work on the Race Relations (Remedies) Act 1994 and Report
on ethnic involvement on Quangos.
Computer equipment donated by the Caparo Group.
Donation to office costs by Mr M Mhadvani and Mr D Popat for
research assistance and publication costs (including "Capital
Con"; "Sinking Our Cities"; "Out of Town Out
of Pocket").
Reimbursed staff costs by urban policy conference, no payment
made to me.
Donation from TGWU; UNISON; GMB for publication "195 Acts".
5. Gifts, benefits and hospitality
(UK)
September 1994,
Air UK provided me with two free return tickets for myself and
my research assistant to visit Rotterdam. I paid for accommodation
and all other expenses.
April 1996
4. Sponsorship or financial or
material support
A contribution
of more than 25% of my election expenses at the 1992 General Election
was made by UNISON (formerly NUPE).
Sponsorship by British Psychological Society.
Income received from Annual Calendar used to support the work
that I do with the Asian community; no payment made to me.
Reimbursed staff costs by urban policy conference, no payment
made to me.
Research assistant provided by Building Employers Federation for
four month period for Planning Review; no payment made to me.
Research assistance and support provided by DJ Freeman and KPMG
on frontbench work on Urban Policy; not payment made to me.
Donation from Mr and Mrs N Chotai to office costs, no payment
made to me.
February 1997
4. Sponsorship or financial or material support
A contribution
of more than 25% of my election expenses at the 1992 General Election
was made by UNISON (formerly NUPE).
Sponsorship by British Psychological Society.
Income received from Annual Calendar used to support the work
that I do with the Asian community; no payment made to me.
Research assistant provided by Building Employers Federation for
four month period for Planning Review; no payment made to me.
Computer equipment donated by the Caparo Group toward office
costs, no payment made to me.
Donation from Mr H Patel towards office costs, no payment
made to me.
5. Gifts, benefits and hospitality
(UK)
28 June 1996,
lunch and cost of conference room donated by the Pendley Manor
Hotel, Tring, for a meeting of the Planning Review Committee.
November 1997
4. Sponsorship or financial or material support
Donation from
GK Noon and H Suterwalla to cover the costs of the Annual Report
1997; no payment made to me.
Registrable contributions to my election campaign expenses
were received from Mrs U Mittal and Mr R Mathrani; additional
contributions were received from Mr M Verma, the Lord Paul
and Mr C Riachy; no payment made to me.
Contribution towards the costs of research and publication
of study "The Glass Ceiling" from the National Organisation
of Asian Businesses.
February 1999
4. Sponsorship or financial or
material support
Contribution towards
the cost of the project "Whitehall Remaining White"
from Mr R Loomba; no payment made to me.
Contribution towards the cost of constituency calendars for 1999
from Mr A P Patel; no payment made to me.
5. Gift, benefits and hospitality (UK)
19 December 1997,
complimentary tickets from Capital Radio London for Elton John
concert at Wembley Arena.
697. The first reference in the Register to a
donation to Mr Vaz by Caparo appeared in the January 1995 edition.
The letter from Mr Vaz notifying the Registrar of a donation from
Caparo was dated 28 October 1994. The entry read "Computer
equipment donated by the Caparo Group".
Background
698. As part of the Committee's consideration
of my memorandum on the previous set of complaints against Mr
Vaz, the Clerk of the Committee wrote to Lord Paul on 8 and 12
February 2001 (Annexes viii2 & 3) asking him for information
about donations to Mr Vaz from either Lord Paul or his company
Caparo which were recorded in Mr Vaz's Register entries.
699. In letters dated 9 and 14 February 2001
(Annexes viii4 & 5), Lord Paul provided the following details
of what he described as "payments to Mr Keith Vaz's office":
| Date
| Cheque No
| Payee
| £
|
| 07.04.92
| n/a |
Leicester East Labour Party
| 500.00[154]
|
| 00.03.93
| n/a |
The Office of Keith Vaz
| 3,000.00
|
| 17.08.94
| 127 |
Advance Systems (Computer for Keith Vaz)
| 8,777.25
|
| 18.09.96
| 700346
| The Office of Keith Vaz
| 3,000.00
|
| 25.04.97
| 701120
| Leicester East Campaign Fund
| 1,000.00
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| Total:
| £ 16,277.25
|
700. Lord Paul added:
"No cash was ever paid
to Mr Keith Vaz. Please note that all payments were made by Caparo
Group and not by me personally."
701. I wrote to Mr Vaz on 3 May 2001 (see Annex
I1) to seek his response to Mr Robathan's complaint.
702. Having received no reply from Mr Vaz I sent
him reminder letters dated 7 September 2001 (to his solicitor)
(see Annex ii56) and 27 September 2001 to Mr Vaz himself (Annex
ii66).
Mr Vaz's Response
703. I received Mr Vaz's response in his letter
dated 28 September 2001 (Annex i9):
"... I have known Lord
Paul and his family for many years and I regard him as a close
friend. He is the godfather of my son, who is named after him.
Lord Paul has been a strong and generous supporter of the Community
causes and is widely known as a supporter of the Labour Party
having publicly made substantial donations to the Labour Party.
The matter came to my attention before the report
[in The Sunday Telegraph][155]
appeared and before Mr Robathan's complaint. I consulted the Registrar
about it; no doubt you have seen a copy of my letter to him confirming
my conversation. The statement attributed to me in The Sunday
Telegraph article is correct, save that I was not aware that
a Register was published in 1994. I was telephoned while I was
at a European Council meeting in Stockholm. Access to Registers
on a Friday night in Stockholm is not good.
As I explained to the Registrar, Lord Paul's two
donations were used for computer and electronic equipment, the
first in 1993 and the second in 1995. The total donation was registered
in 1995. If there was an unreasonable delay in registering the
first part of the payment I cannot explain it after this length
of time, but I did register it and the purpose of it. Lord Paul
made further donations all of which have been registered even
though some did not need to be."
704. The Registrar confirms that Mr Vaz came
to see him to discuss donations he had received from Lord Paul.
The Registrar's note of the meeting, dated 26 March 2001, reads
as follows:
"Mr Vaz asked about:
(1) The rules relating to the registration
of one-off donations to local parties. I explained the guidance
currently given (ie to consider registration), but added that
this was only adopted recently.
(2) Support for his office from Lord Paul.
He has had three lots of support, all registered: the first two
under Lord Paul's company, the third attributed to Lord Paul.
Lord Paul has apparently complained to Mr Vaz that he never gives
donations in a personal capacity. Mr Vaz will write to set the
record straight."
705. On 20 April 2001 (Annex viii10), Mr Vaz's
agent, Mr Keith Bennett, wrote to the Registrar on Mr Vaz's behalf,
as follows:
"You will recall that
Mr Vaz came to see you about donations made by Lord Paul, the
Chairman of Caparo plc. You kindly gave Mr Vaz a set of Registers
going back to December 1992. As Mr Vaz told you, Lord Paul had
informed Mr Vaz that the Committee had written to him in February
2001, asking him to set out any donations made to Mr Vaz by Lord
Paul. Mr Vaz has not seen this letter and it did not appear in
the Report.
However, may I confirm the advice that you gave and
seek any further comments or advice you may have. A donation was
made in 1992 to the Labour Party for the 1992 election campaign.
This was for £500. Your advice was that this was not registrable.[156]
Two donations were made some time in 1993 and 1994 which were
used for the purchase of computer equipment and telephone equipment
attached to the computer. These appear in the Register published
in January 1995 and are listed as "computer equipment donated
by the Caparo group". (Apparently there was no Register in
1993 although there was one in 1994.) There are two further donations
which appear in the January and October 1997 Registers. Mr Vaz
spoke to you about the use of Lord Paul's name whereas, in fact,
the donations were from his company, but he believes you did not
regard this as an important point."
706. The Registrar replied on 1 May 2001 (Annex
viii11) in the following terms:
"As regards the two
donations "made some time in 1993 and 1994", you state
that these were registered by Mr Vaz as "computer equipment
donated by the Caparo Group" and indeed such an entry appears
in the January 1995 Register. (I assume the Caparo Group is Lord
Paul's company). As you also correctly state, there was no printed
Register in the calendar year 1993, although a printed edition
was published in January 1994. Whether these donations were correctly
registered would depend on whether they formed part of a single
contribution to Mr Vaz's office expenses (albeit made in the form
of two separate payments). Whether they were registered within
the 28 day period allowed for registering new interests would,
of course, depend on the dates on which the donations were received
by Mr Vaz.
So far as the two donations appearing in the two
1997 Registers are concerned, one was attributed to Caparo and
the other to Lord Paul in Mr Vaz's Register entry. It could perhaps
be argued that, in terms of indicating the source of any possible
influence on Mr Vaz, it would have been better to have stuck to
the previous description of Caparo for the second 1997 donation
unless Mr Vaz was absolutely sure that the donation was made in
a purely personal capacity by Lord Paul. But I cannot speculate
as to what view the Commissioner or the Committee might take on
that point if a complaint were received."
153 The last printed Register prior to this date was
published in December 1992. Back
154
Not registrable under the rules relating to donations to election
campaign expenses, where the qualifying limit for registration
is more than 25% of declared expenses. Back
155
See paragraph 695. Back
156
See footnote to paragraph 699. Back
|
